Brazil and Thailand to Explore Tokenization for Financial Transactions

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) is expanding its international links via Project Ensemble, a tokenization initiative. Banco Central do Brasil (BCB), with its Drex pilot program, and the Bank of Thailand (BOT), with its Project San initiative, joined the project.

The HKMA announced expanding international cooperation on tokenization through its Project Ensemble initiative, which aims to enable the application of tokenization in financial transactions and exchange activities. The central banks of Brazil and Thailand joined the project.

According to a press release, Banco Central do Brasil (BCB), in collaboration with the HKMA, plans to test tokenization in cross-border payment-versus-payment (PvP) and delivery-versus-payment (DvP) settlements in trade finance and carbon credits. The tests will take place within the Ensemble Sandbox using Drex, a CBDC of Banco Central do Brasil.

Roberto Campos Neto, Governor of Banco Central do Brasil, claims that the use of Drex in cross-border tests is fundamental to the Brazilian CBDC project and contributes to the creation of a more integrated global financial market.

The Bank of Thailand (BOT) also joined the HKMA pilot to test PvP and DvP. A key aspect of the collaboration is to explore and prove the interoperability of new integrated financial market infrastructures based on distributed ledger technology (DLT). Interoperability will also be tested as part of the Ensemble Sandbox with Project San, the BOT’s initiative to build and test a prototype tokenization ecosystem.

According to Alisara Mahasandana, Deputy Governor of Corporate Development at the Bank of Thailand, the collaboration with the HKMA will allow the BOT to address the diversity of technical approaches, business requirements, and regulatory standards across the jurisdictions. The partnership, she believes, will also significantly advance tokenization efforts in the financial sectors in Hong Kong and Thailand.

Project Ensemble was launched by the HKMA in March this year to drive the development of the tokenization market in Hong Kong. In the summer of 2024, the project launched joint research with the Bank of France (BDF) to improve cross-border transactions and settlement efficiency.